


like rolling thunder

by cupertinos



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2727476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupertinos/pseuds/cupertinos





	1. hot company

The doorways are made of dark wood, the plywood paneling is chipping white paint and memories of babies crying. I'm gripped tight and raised from my nostalgia, 

an elderly woman pouring drinks.

I look around and I'm aware of my breathing. The fireplace radiates a new warmth.

I was a platform for the old woman's idle chat, the talk of how New England's cold weather is unbearable but the changing of the leaves brings a certain warmth to the neighborhood. Mutually comfortable, I don't remember it but I can sense it in that very moment.

I cringe as I feel my fingers sweep across dust on the white window sill, also weak and chipping, but the woman doesn't notice. I look outside, it's dark, and I'm desperate to see the familiar white speckling across the sky. It is overcast and there are deep shadows between the trees that the moonlight can't touch.

 I can't tell whether the woman is going to offer me whatever she is pouring. She sits on a graying leather couch. It reminds me of tainted meat. An elderly man walks in, and I step out of the room to escape their harsh whispers.

I move into the hallway. Unlit, floored with the same bleached hard wood.

_First room on the left._

Something guides me, a subconscious recollection of the rooms in the house, but everything that ever happened in those rooms is still a blur. I feel my way across the wall until my fingers come to the doorway, and I can hear hushed arguing from the room I had just stepped from.

" _It's putting salt on the wound."_ _  
_

_"The situation is unpredictable now,"_

The man's voice is assertive. I tune out the conversation and flip the switch, on, off, then on again, pulling the chain on the fan twice, the order that activated the lights but not the television or the fan. I'm moving and not thinking. 

The light is dim, the small windows that are set just under the cieling appear painted black from the night. I step up onto the bedpost against the wall, balancing on both feet.

I'm face to face with a small painting. A woman, walking through a field of flowers. Anya told me that one of her ancestors had painted the small canvas, but I never believed her.

Something about the image made me feel at ease. The memory of midnight, watching videos and being distracted by the moonlight glinting off it's sheer surface, waking up in the morning and having it be the first thing the sun hits after it rises through the window. It was familiar and familiar was what I needed.

The cieling fan casts just the right amount of light on it. I never understood the painting or really thought of it, it was just always there. I didn't know what had drawn me to it.

The voices from the living room sound heated. 

I tilt the canvas slowly before pulling it completely away from where it hangs on a nail in the wall. I suddenly feel cold and look to find the draft, but the windows to the left of me are sealed shut.

It's backed with cheap cardboard, and light as a feather. Crickets sound outside the window, barely audible through breaks in the elderly couple's conversations.

_"-our responsibility,"_

On the back in small writing, looking as if it was scrawled by a young child, are the words  _Ek sal altyd met julle wees!_

After reading the words several times, the pain in my head is excruciating. I know the words because I'm the one who wrote them. I left them for Anya.

_"Can we at least try and speak to her?"_

The arguing grows louder and softer each moment, the part of my brain that is listening can't keep up with the constant change of emotion. Anger, sadness, anxiety. It's all about me. I grip the canvas tight, so tight I smear part of the oily finish, just where the flowers meet the sky.

" _I don't know..."_

Memories flood back.


	2. even on a cloudy day

"I don't know how to braid hair,"

Anya is sitting on the back porch, the heat of midday is stifling, she enjoys it while I sit in the shadow of the overhang. She's picking at the rocks and ants between the cracks in the old cement. Her hair is long and somewhere between red, yellow, and brown. I can't even remember now.

It hasn't even been that much time and I've forgotten.

"That's fine." I reply, tired. My heart wants to jump out of my chest, move my feet and run off to do something unexpected, wild, fuel the tempestuous storm in my mind. I hate the heat but I need the summer, the opportunity to do anything at all. Anya stays seated, still, in her own world, perking up occasionally to say something unusual. She can see how the heat affects me. I'm sure she can feel all of the emotions coursing through my veins. She's always been able to tell things like that.

"You're always going on about how you're a  _leader,"_ Anya narrows her eyes. "Lead me somewhere." She gets up as the breeze moves through the wind chimes, creating eery high pitched noises. She leaves her shoes under the porch stairs like she always does and runs off towards the wooden fence.

I follow her, behind the back garage to the left, the slanted wood fence is dying, the overgrown tendrils have turned into thorns. I can't see Anya. I've assumed she's moved deeper into the forest.

" _Silvia!"_  As soon as I turn I'm greeted by a swift gust of wind, which chills me even more since I'm standing in the shadow of the back garage, a small area the setting sun never sees. I hear my name, repeated, it is someone yelling but to me it sounds like a whisper, like the wind speaking, weird effects from a science fiction movie.

I should be creeped out by the noises coming from the forest, or the shells of old trucks left behind, the field behind me littered with old tires and black plastic bags, but I've never felt more at home. 

I turn around a few times searching for the source of the sound. My head begins to ache.

 _"Say hello, Silvia!"_  Anya is in front of me, her hair tossed around by the wind that has suddenly picked up. Her voice sounds different, bone-chilling almost. Each of her words perpetuates the pain in my head. I find myself bristling when she speaks. Her voice is the whipping cold air that takes me from the summer.

" _Say hello!"_

I shut my eyes tight and the pain in my head subsides. When I open them again I'm on the porch, Anya is sitting in front of me, playing with the rocks. The wind chimes sound. The trees in the forest sway and the bird chirps and the sun beats down and I feel afraid, more afraid than I've felt in a while.

"I wish I knew how. I mean, I could do so much more with my hair if I did." Anya is talking to me, I realize.

"Where were we just now?" I sit up and I can tell Anya is surprised by my sudden change in attitude, silent to flustered in a split second. But it didn't feel like a split second.  _We had just been at the mouth of the forest, hadn't we? The back garage?_

"We've been sitting right here. Are you alright?" Anya immediately reads my face and knows I've been upset by something.

The wind keeps blowing, a pure contrast from the blistering heat. It doesn't match up. "A storm must be coming," I blurt. The pain in my head returns as I try to figure out whether or not I had just been hallucinating.

"The man on the weather said it was going to stay humid for the next few days. No rain, no nothing." Anya shakes her head. She obviously doesn't remember anything. 

 _"_ But this wind is unusual."

Anya doesn't say a word. She is like that sometimes. I don't know if it's because she doesn't hear me, or doesn't want to continue to conversation. 

I freeze up.  _It's all in my head. I can't let Anya know anything. Because this_ something _had involved her. But what was it she told me?_

"Hello," I say. I hope it will remind her of something. I hope I'm not alone in my hallucinating.

_But was I really hallucinating?_

When I rouse myself from my thoughts I see Anya's lips moving, and all I hear is the slight breeze. 


End file.
